Discussion

Reno Chowdown: Tasty fondue at Asian Noodles

The Greater Reno Grub and Gripe Group gathered at Asian Noodles for some delicious Asian fondue and it certainly seems worth bringing to the attention of other foodies. Asian Noodles is in the Costco shopping center in Reno and has expanded into the business next door. About a month ago it added the fondue.The fondue starts with a broth you use to cook your vegetables, protein and noodles. You get two. We choose yellow curry and a Thai tom yum made from lemon grass. Both were tasty. They bring the broth out and put it on an electric heater. You can pick as many meats, vegetables and noodles as you want. They bring it out one dish at a time. So if you order more, it doesn’t mean you get more. You get smaller amounts of each.Just about everything worked well. The vegetables seemed especially fresh and tasty. We tried something called ton ho, which I guess are chrysanthemum leaves. There were three kinds of mushrooms and all worked well, but the enoki mushrooms were probably the best. The fried tofu and sliced bamboo shoots were also stand outs for me.The beef, chicken, pork and lamb were also tasty. I think the beef worked best for me. It was pretty much like the beef used in tai pho. The seafood is where we seemed to run into problems. I liked the sliced fish and squid balls. Both the shrimp and mussels had fishy tastes to me.They offer three kinds of noodles but we tried only glass noodles and the yellow noodles. I liked the yellow noodles but the glass noodles were the clear winner here (no pun intended).You can either eat your food as a soup or you can use the basket scoop they provide to pull out stuff to eat without broth. I look forward to going back and trying the fondue with other broths. This would be a great way to eat with vegetarian friends, by the way. They offer a vegetarian broth and the vegetables and noodles alone would be tasty enough. The spicy herbal broth and the miso broth also look promising. They have a plain soup base, an herbal broth, and, for extra month, a goat soup broth as well.Service was good. The Asian fondue is $20 a person and given the quality of the ingredients well worth the price.

Wish I'd been there! DH, (who is mostly vegetarian) loved it, btw! And he liked the mussells, although he agreed that the veggies and the broth with noodles were the best part for him. He has promised to take me there sometime soon!

Shabu-Shabu would be right if Japanese. The Chinese term is hot pot or fire pot. If given the choice I would take the goat broth and pass on the herbal one. Herbal broth is not always made for Western taste. I will have to try on my next time to Reno. Like Janetofreno I too am sad I missed it. Was it all you can eat or a set menu?